The Russians switched to replenishing cards through the fast payment system (SBP) instead of ATMs. This trend was reported to Izvestia in the largest banks. The share of such transactions is about 66% of all receipts to the account. The trend is associated with the growth of non-cash transactions, the spread of the SBP and the absence of commissions for transfers up to 100 thousand rubles per month, experts explained. The Central Bank noted that payment for goods and services using the service is also increasing at an active pace. In 2023, its popularity will continue to grow, experts expect.

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The system of fast payments has become the main channel for replenishing cards and accounts for Russians. At the end of 2022, this method overtook the number and volume of crediting money through ATMs and card-to-card transfers, Izvestia was told in the largest Russian banks.

Thus, at the beginning of last year, Post Bank transactions through the SBP accounted for only 20% of incoming transactions, and by the end of the year the figure had grown to 40%. At the same time, the share of receipts through ATMs for the same period decreased from 40 to 25%. Card-to-card transfers have also become less popular: the percentage of such transactions has decreased from 20% to 12%.

Photo: Global Look Press/dpa/Fabian Sommer

The SBP service has become the main channel for incoming transfers for VTB, said Svyatoslav Ostrovsky, a member of the bank’s board. He added: the volume of such transactions doubled last year, exceeding 1 trillion rubles. At the same time, the share of replenishments from card to card is rapidly falling – customers choose the Central Bank service as a more profitable scenario due to the lack of commission within the limit. At the request of the regulator, interbank transfers through the SBP up to 100 thousand rubles per month should be free.

In 2022, the share of transfers through the service at Promsvyazbank increased by 3.5 times, and the size of such transactions exceeded the volume of cash deposits through ATMs and terminals, the press service of the financial organization noted.

Users choose an easier and more convenient way, so replenishing cards without visiting an office and using ATMs is gaining popularity, said Evgeny Gladilin, Director of the Department of Digital Business and Loyalty Programs at Novikombank. He also confirmed the trend. According to him, the volume of incoming payments through the SBP more than doubled over the year and in December 2022 amounted to more than 1 billion rubles.

Photo: Izvestiya / Pavel Volkov

In Otkritie, transfers through the service have also become the main channel for replenishing cards and accounts of citizens, the credit institution said. They clarified that their share almost doubled over the year, to 66%, while the rate of transfers from card to card fell three times, to 9%.

The popularity of SBP will only increase due to the convenience of this channel, Anna Kambulova, managing director of Sovcombank, is sure. According to her, more than half of all transfers are already sent through the fast payment system. At the beginning of 2022, the share of such transactions was about 18%, but by the end of the year it had more than tripled.

The increase in the share of transfers through the Central Bank service was also confirmed by UBRD and Zenit Bank. When transferring a large amount that exceeds the monthly limit of transactions without commission, some customers still use ATMs, the Zenit press service explained.

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The fast payment system was launched in February 2019 by the Central Bank. The maximum transfer amount for the FPS is 1 million rubles, however, some banks have additional restrictions. Citizens can send up to 100,000 rubles a month free of charge. For operations over this amount, credit institutions charge commissions, but not more than 0.5%.

SBP trend

In just four years, the fast payment system has become the main tool for money transfers, overtaking card payments in popularity, the press service of the Central Bank said. So, in December 2022, for every card interbank transfer, there were three transactions through the SBP. In addition, last year the growth in payments for goods and services via this service continued — the number of such transactions increased 27 times compared to 2021, and their volume increased 12 times, the Bank of Russia noted. They added: in total, almost 373 million purchases worth about 786 billion rubles have been made since the launch of the system.

Clients are increasingly using the SBP against the backdrop of a widespread transition to non-cash payments, the press service of Bank Saint Petersburg explained. They added: it is convenient to replenish an account through an ATM if the consumer received cash, but when a non-cash amount is received, it is much easier and safer to make a transfer.

Photo: Izvestiya / Pavel Volkov

Evgeny Mironyuk, an expert at BCS World of Investments, agrees with this. He added: the share of cash payments in the total money turnover is now about a third. At the same time, customers prefer to use the SBP due to the absence of commissions within the limits. The service is also gaining popularity due to the uniformity of tariffs and the connection of a large number of banks to it.

The trend of increasing the share of transactions through the SBP will continue in 2023, Igor Dodonov, an analyst at FG Finam, expects. In his opinion, Russians will also increasingly use this system when paying for purchases in stores as an alternative to Pay-services. The advantage of the SBP is also that the smartphone does not have to support NFC technology, which most budget models do not have. In addition, when paying through the system of fast payments on the Internet, it is not required to enter card data, the expert noted.